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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088247">Rogue Element</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arboreal_overlords/pseuds/arboreal_overlords'>arboreal_overlords</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, I can't believe I'm writing this, M/M, Multi, No actual sex is had, Other, Set between Season 3 and Season 4 of TMA, Tim is Kayaking, Tim seduces Elias to get out of the Institute</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:48:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,211</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arboreal_overlords/pseuds/arboreal_overlords</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A few days after the failed Unknowing, Tim Stoker woke up to a fractured leg and a distressingly un-imprisoned boss. His erstwhile supervisor was in some sort of death coma. Martin was beside himself. </p><p>Tim sighed and aggressively tousled his hair. “Modern problems require modern solutions,” he said, resigned.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elias Bouchard/Tim Stoker, Jonathan Sims &amp; Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James &amp; Tim Stoker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>230</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Thing About Anne Boleyn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The thing about Anne Boleyn that you need to remember is that she fundamentally changed the religious landscape of England on just the <em>promise</em> of sex. For all the famous figures of history who had seduced their way into political influence or covert information, Anne Boleyn had known the power of a long con. She literally cockteased her way onto the royal throne, and (perhaps inadvertently) set up her daughter to become the most influential monarch of British history. Of course, all that scheming hadn’t ended well for Anne, but she didn’t have several things that Tim had. Namely, an understanding of eldritch fear powers and a trusty kayak.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">But Tim was getting ahead of himself.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A few days after the failed Unknowing ritual, Tim woke up in the wings of the NHS with a fractured leg, several less photogenic scars, and a distressingly un-imprisoned boss. Apparently Elias had had the Met in his pocket for years, which they probably should have considered during their planning. Martin and Melanie were okay, thank god; the arresting officer had let them off with a stern faux-warning on misreporting crimes. If Daisy had been there, she probably would have attacked the guy on principle.Instead, she was locked in an evil coffin and probably dead. Possibly not. Tim tried not to think about it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Jon was in a coma and more than probably dead. That didn’t really capture the gravity of the situation. Jon <em>was </em>dead, in all meanings except medical. There were several doctors who Tim eventually saw hovering around Jon’s hospital room, just viscerally offended at the fact that Jon’s heart was at odds with his sluggish and erratic brain activity. Tim would have liked to tell them that Jon was just being Jon, that infuriating contradictions and a lack of answers were just par for the course. But, Tim was still knocked out on pain medication and suffering through the trauma of a foiled revenge suicide maneuver, so he had no idea what actually came out of his mouth. Probably nothing coherent.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A few days later, they finally discharged him. Technically, there was nothing wrong with Tim except a compound fracture in his leg and a host of psychological issues that were there to begin with. Tim careened out of the hospital on a pair of desiccated crutches and stared at his phone blankly. He lived in a fourth-floor walk-up and had no friends anymore.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A silver town car pulled up in front of him. Tim knew what was happening even before the passenger window rolled down to reveal a sleek blond head wearing a triumphant sneer. “Tim,” Elias said smugly. “Won’t you join me.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim was dying to tell him to fuck off. He would honestly rather re-fracture his leg than spend a second in a car with Elias, who was indirectly, if not directly, responsible for the death of at least two of his friends. But, Tim had no way of getting back into his apartment except for Martin, who was tearfully clinging to Jon four floors up. Tim was grouchy and in pain, but he wasn’t a monster. He groaned and shifted his right crutch into his left hand long enough to open the car door.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Elias had his hands folded in his lap, dressed in a crisp double-breasted navy suit like a proper Bond villain. The car had been detailed with a buttery leather that remained cool in the late August sunshine. Despite the wide berth of the backseat and Tim’s awkwardly placed crutches, their hips and shoulders whispered in contact, wool blend brushing against the rough blue hospital scrubs.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim would have found it hot if it wasn’t, again, for the fact that Elias had known that Sasha had been stolen by some creepy eldritch furniture fuck and had infected Tim’s mind to the extent that he couldn’t recall her face. Tim could remember the early days, back when Jon had cherrypicked them both from research and artifact storage; they were giddy with excitement and willing to trivialize their boss’ prickly demeanor and airs of seniority.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Tim,” Sasha had warned in her earnest way, leaning over to his desk and trailing her long curly brown hair over Tim’s collection of goofy post-its. “No fighting, no biting. He means well.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim had grinned back at her. “You’re limiting my most promising options.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Of course, Tim had no way of knowing whether or not Sasha actually had long brown hair.His original memory of her was corrupted. Maybe she was blonde and sarcastic. He hoped not. He’d never know. </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Fuck off, Elias,” Tim said bitterly, slouching down in the car as much as his cast would permit.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Elias crossed his legs.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim wasn’t an idiot. Somewhere between <em>are you fucking KIDDING me</em> and <em>yeah, that checks out </em>in his mind, he had already queued the inevitable moral dilemma in front of him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Later, in the apartment building that he had scooted up the stairs backward on his ass, knowing that Elias had watched the entire undignified, sweaty process, Tim stared intently in his bathroom mirror. Martin was at least temporarily indisposed. Basira was likewise. Melanie was the closest that Tim had to an ally, and he was pretty sure that she hated him by default. If he was going to escape (and escape was his plan, Tim had tried to save the world once and failed to heroically die properly) then Tim was going to have to go it alone.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim made eye contact with his scarred but unequivocally handsome face. <em>‘You’re limiting my most promising options,’</em> he thought and wanted to scream. That wouldn’t do. One couldn’t seduce a mind-reader that way.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim sighed and aggressively tousled his hair. “Modern problems require modern solutions,” he said, resigned.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Rolling Out the Research Skills</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay so a few notes that I didn’t make in chapter 1, i.e. the chapter I wrote in 45 minutes at 10 pm while incredibly tipsy:</p><p>-I don’t endorse Tim/Elias in any way except for the purpose of a con<br/>- There might be a smidge more indirect sexual contact than I originally planned, so I dialed the rating up to mature<br/>-You can squint at this fic and either see some Tim/Sasha and/or Tim/Jon. My personal headcanon is that Tim was a little bit in love with OG!Sasha and is still massively fucked up from having a second person in his life killed by the Stranger. Also, I’m obsessed with Tim and Jon’s dynamic and have now in multiple fics trying to figure out how that would change if Tim lived past the Unknowing. Obviously neither of those pairings is going to be endgame in this fic (the main pairing is Tim/Kayaking) but Tim’s going to be working through his anger/guilt about Jon a LOT, mostly unconsciously. </p><p> </p><p>also, this fic was supposed to be a oneshot and a joke, and now it is neither. Apologies.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Tim was many things — angry, depressed, stuck in a fear cult — but he was, at his core, a damn good researcher. You couldn’t switch careers from publishing to paranormal investigation without some transferrable skills. When working for Hatchette, Tim was able to read new authors— not just their manuscripts, but their personas— and figure out what kind of guidance they needed to produce the next great novel.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">At the Institute, Tim acquired a reputation for getting information from the most paranoid or suspicious sources— people who could, yeah, corroborate the disappearance of their cousin Mike two years ago, but why did you want to know? <em>Who</em> did you work for?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The seduction thing kind of happened by accident. During his first few weeks on the Archival Staff, when Jon was already tetchy but had not yet escalated to Mach Five Asshole, Tim had been asked to track down corroborating information from Angela Haighbury, a woman whose sister died in a lift collapse after giving a statement to the Institute four years ago. Tim felt a pang of empathy as he read over the file, though he would rather walk barefoot over hot coals than use Danny as leverage to bond with a source. Instead, he resolved to be as kind and gentle as possible to what sounded like a nice young woman who was probably still grieving. He’d termed this approach ‘the Anti-Jon.’</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Several hours later, while sitting at the bar in a nondescript Wetherspoons, Tim realized that he’d made several tactical errors. Angela was deeply uninterested in Tim’s gentle questioning as she poured what looked like an absolutely lethal rum and coke.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“You’re the creepy ghost museum, right?” Angela said, looking over the bar at him in casual derision. “The hell do you want?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim cleared his throat. “We in the creepy ghost museum business prize ourselves on accurate records,” he said, waving his notepad.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Angela glanced back up at him and smirked. “Fine,” she said, sliding an empty glass across the bar that Tim was either supposed to help dry or drink something from. He was fervently down for either plan. “I get off at eleven. If you’re so hot for records, you can stay until then.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Huh,” Tim said, starting to grin. “New plan.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The next day, Tim rolled into work slightly late, bearing several visible hickeys and a meticulously completed report. The archival crew goggled, and Tim couldn’t resist a bit of a flourish. “Never let it be said that I don’t go the distance for the job, boss,” he said, winking at Jon and slapping down the report.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Sasha rolled her eyes. Martin looked scandalized and a little impressed. Jon opened and closed his mouth several times before sighing.“Don’t make a habit of it, Tim,” he said in resignation. Tim, then, obviously made a habit of it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">And fine, maybe he played the office rumors up a little. Tim <em>liked</em> people— or at least he used to. He used to be able to see the best in them and enjoyed lavishing attention on the things that they didn’t see as beautiful. A lot of the time, yeah, they would end up giving him information that was helpful, but Tim wasn’t a dick about it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">(Yes, Time did technically sleep with a few of them, but only after getting the information he needed. He had <em>ethics</em>).</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim did not really have ethics anymore.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The night that Elias collected him at the hospital, Tim sat in the middle of his flat, trying not to feel like a bug pinned in a shadowbox. He wondered if Elias was watching him at this moment, taking stock of the blackout curtains pulled over his living room window (installed after Jon’s first few attempts at stalking) or the piles of old hardback books on Robert Smirke that dotted the room. Tim’s flat was tidier than usual; before leaving for Yarmouth, Tim had cleaned away all the molding cups of coffee and clacking piles of beer bottles that overcrowded his kitchen, took out the trash and wiped his desktop. Tim was pretty sure, at the time, that he wasn’t coming back, and he felt nauseous at the idea of his Aunt Jean or some total stranger having to clean up after him or trawl through Tim’s browsing history. Tim should really be trying to recover some of his email passwords instead of scheming about how to get one over a mind reader.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim’s only extended experience with Beholding powers was with Jon, who was kind of Elias’ miserable padawan. Tim had clocked that even before Elias’ big villain reveal, back when he was fuming over Elias’ unwillingness to fire Tim’s boss. “Why is it,” he had hissed to Sasha while Martin was making cow eyes over the cooling tea on Jon’s desk. “That<em> everyone in this Institute</em> has a thing for Jon. Jon!”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“I don’t,” Sasha said, not looking up from her computer.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Yes, I know that you have good taste,” Tim dismissed. “It’s the others I’m worried about. Is there something in, like, the Institute water? Are the two of us just immune?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Sasha didn’t respond, which was probably for the best. There were, in retrospect, so many answers to that question. “Yes, I do have a thing for Jon, but the thing is murderous intent because I’m a monster.” “Sasha is dead.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">But anyway, Tim had seen Elias’ weird obsession with Jon long before he and Martin were fighting for custody of Jon’s hospital bed like some weird Gollum/Smeagol duo. Neither of them were subtle. But Elias's weird and deeply unprofessional crush was recontextualized in the wake of the revelations about the Institute being some spooky fucking prison. As deeply irritating as Jon was, he was Tim’s best resource into how Elias Bouchard worked.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Jon could command the truth out of people, and he could sometimes see things, but it uneven and unreliable. There were facts and memories, and Elias seemed much better at extracting those in person, but it was still a question of <em>sight</em>. There needed to be some kind of conduit; if not a person in the flesh, then a proxy. Some sort of eye portal.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Tell me what you see,” Jon had commanded him in the wax museum. They were technically his last words.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim sighed. “Okay,” he said quietly to himself. “Eyes, I guess.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim cut the eyes out of all of his artwork, turned every book on his bookshelf so that the spine was facing a wall, and opened up his laptop before grabbing a dishtowel from his kitchen. Sitting back down, Tim opened a page on his internet browser, and tied the dishtowel around his eyes.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Um, Siri,” he said, feeling like a prize idiot. “Look up Elias Bouchard?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">It took a while for Tim to get the hang of searching the internet solely through different programs of audio transmission. It was <em>hard</em>; Tim suddenly realized that in all his years as a researcher he had never once provided an image description in text, and resolved to do better if he lived and continued on in gainful employment outside of an eldritch fearscape.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim also soon learned that there was almost no information about Elias Bouchard online.Elias seemed like the type to keep a tight leash on his internet footprint, but the man was only— what, in his late forties? An extremely attractive late fifties? All Tim knew was from listening to Jon’s recordings, through which Tim had learned that Elias had been an amiable stoner in his early years at the Institute. Tim couldn’t picture it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Um, look up the Magnus Archives,” Tim said. “Go to, um, About Us. Or People.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim knew almost nothing about James Wright beyond his signatures on a few documents Tim had handled. There was, understandably, little record on the internet of a man who had died in 1990. Tim paused. When exactly had Elias taken over the Institute?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">As it turns out, after several attempts at shouting down his computer AI, James Wright died only days before Elias Bouchard took over as head of the Institute. It was, from what Tim could read through the stilted language of the papers, a sudden death and a surprising promotion.  Tim’s search into James Wright produced similar results. Oxbridge educated, no personal life, orphan and heir to a modest amount of money from a car accident that killed both his parents. He died of a brain hemorrhage in his office. Tim briefly thought about taking off the blindfold to do an image search of James Wright, but at that point, he didn’t need to. He knew, from the portraits that hung in the side corridor, that James Wright was an unassuming but vaguely handsome white guy that continued the identical line of portraits that hung on the eastern hallway going into Elias’ office. A line of portraits that began with Jonah Magnus, whose grin always tilted in an uneasily familiar direction.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Tim said, lying on the floor of his living room, still blindfolded. “That is <em>fucked up</em>.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">But weirdly enough, it made things a little easier. If Tim was going to go through with this plan, then it was nicer to think about the fact that Elias’ body didn’t actually belong to Elias. Maybe somewhere, the real Elias Bouchard was riding shotgun and might appreciate a good time.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The next day, Tim barreled into the archive as brashly as he could on crutches. The Institute was unsurprisingly lax when it came to disability compliance; there were no contingencies for the marble staircases that Tim navigated awkwardly, nor the doors that were incredibly heavy and closed by default. Someone had wedged old tape recorders under the swinging doors in the Archival rooms to keep them open. It was probably Basira. Tim was unexpectedly touched.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">If it was indeed Basira, she wasn’t going to own up to it, given the way that she scowled at him when he entered the break room. “Hi,” she said shortly, looking back down at a stack of statements. Tim got an unexpected blast of Jon from two years ago.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Hi,” he said grudgingly, settling into his desk chair after a few moments of negotiated awkwardness. “Where’s Martin?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Basira glared at him. “Melanie’s sorting statements related to the Flesh downstairs,” she said tightly. “Martin's okay, but I don't know where he's gone. Elias brought in some donor whose been taking up all of his time.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“What donor?” Tim asked.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Some guy from the Lukas family,” Basira said staidly, returning to the pages in front of her. “He’s taking ‘<em>a more active interest in his family's stake in the Institute.'  </em>Whatever that means.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Basira was clearly worried about this and was trying not to be. Tim tried to copy her tone of professional nonchalance and then failed miserably. “He’s probably not okay,” he said, more angrily than she deserved. “I don’t know why the hell you think he would be.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Basira looked up at him from her reports. “I had no idea you cared,” she said cooly. Which, fair. </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"> “We’re probably all that’s left,” he said. “I mean, Jon—”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“— Jon’s dead,” Basira said evenly. Tim would have flinched, but he’d broken a lot of bones in his body and didn’t know if that was something they even did anymore. </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim nodded. “Well, we should get on with the work,” he said flatly, slipping back into the disaffected tone that he had used for all of the last year. “You’ve got anything for me?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Basira did; it was a statement on someone who had been eaten by a hedgerow up near Kent. Tim grabbed it and gave it the most perfunctory of looks before striding into Elias’ office.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Somone got eaten by a plant in Ashford,” he announced.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Elias hummed, not looking up from the desk. </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Tim waited a beat, and then concentrated.It was a memory from his college years in Madrid, when a bossy redhead from Cadiz had backed him into a shadier corner in an outside production of<em> La Traviat</em>a projected on the facade of the Teatro Real. They shared a couple of classes together, and Tim was just a<em> little </em>late in submitting to a group project for their English final.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><span class="s1">“You couldn’t for once be a team player, Stoker?” </span> <span class="s2">Belén snapped at him after encountering Tim and some of his football friends relaxing and drinking doctored Fantas outside the theater. “Do you have any idea the slack I needed to pick up for you?” </span></p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">Tim had blown <span class="s3">Belén </span>with the intensity that befitted the emotional heights of "Sempre libera,” a scene that undulated on the sides of the buildings with appropriate passion. Tim was young and still blissfully naive, wrapped up in the idea that this is what sex would always be like, grinning up at each other and hissing thrilled warning whenever someone walked too close by. Afterward, he had leaned up and kissed them, twisting his hand into their beautiful curly hair and—“</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">“Do you <em>need something</em>, Tim?” Elias asked testily.</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">Tim blinked at looked at him. Huh. So that worked. “Oh, sorry boss,” he said irreverently. “Got distracted for a second. This news from Ashford—”</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">“Leave,” Elias said, practically hissing in his vehemence.</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">Tim saluted insouciantly and backed out of the office.Basira looked at him in suspicion when he strolled out into the archival floor, looking flushed but determined.</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p5">“Trust me,” Tim deadpanned. “You don’t want to know.”</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Feel free to come yell at me/with me on Tumblr @arborealoverlords</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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